


(please) rewind and look at you

by kimaracretak



Category: River (TV 2015)
Genre: F/F, Ghosts, Past Character Death, memory and its implausibilities, this is sad i am sad, uneven temporalities
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-29
Updated: 2016-03-29
Packaged: 2018-05-29 23:01:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,063
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6397495
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kimaracretak/pseuds/kimaracretak
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>(i hold your hand so hard my knuckles turn white / when you clear the streets and / kill the lights): Chrissie and Stevie have the same conversation in two (of one of their) lifetimes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	(please) rewind and look at you

**Author's Note:**

  * For [FanchonMoreau](https://archiveofourown.org/users/FanchonMoreau/gifts).



> title from katatonia, 'increase', summary quote from katatonia, 'follower'
> 
> laura asked: chrissie/stevie, "i’ve seen the way you look at me when you think I don’t notice."

"You're staring again," Stevie says. Her voice, the only warm thing in the quiet cold of a late-December incident room, doesn't so much startle Chrissie back into the present as draw her back gently.

"Am not," she says reflexively. It's true and untrue, it always is these days. She always means to just drift off for a bit, let her eyes rest on the middle distance instead of one more report, one more CCTV clip, one more reminder that Stevie and too many other people are _gone_.

Of course, the times when she lands on Stevie make the entire exercise academic, anyway.

Stevie just smiles, lighter in death than she has been in ... god, when Chrissie looks back on it, she can't even _remember_. Months, she had thought, and even that is far too long. "Definitely staring," she says, and the affection is so _Stevie_ , and it's so _unearned_ right now that Chrissie's breath strangles in her throat.

"Can you blame me?" she finally asks. The answer running through her mind is _yes, yes, yes (for not knowing how to ask what was wrong, for not being there in time, for not finding the answers soon enough even now it's too late)_.

But Stevie shakes her head. "Look at you," she says, and there's the hint of wonder that was always one of her clearest ways of expressing affection trapped under her words, working its way into Chrissie's veins and burning her blood with the loss of it. "Staring at me like you can bring me back to life just by wanting."

Chrissie's not going to cry, she's _not_ ; the office isn't for crying, the office is for pretending. "We've been here before," she reminds her. "It's my fault we're doing this again."

Part of her wants Stevie to say, _no, of course not, don't be daft, it's not your fault_. Wants Stevie to give her something, anything to hold on to during the nights.

The rest of her knows better. This Stevie is a part of her, this Stevie has no forgiveness to offer. The one she had known in her life ... that Stevie might have. The one who's taking shape after her death ... that Stevie, this third Stevie, she doesn't know at all.

So she shuts her eyes, and remembers.

 

***

 

"I've seen the way you look at me when you think I don't notice."

There's nothing accusing about Stevie's voice, but Chrissie feels caught, anyway. "I don't," she murmurs, ducking her head to hide her surely flaming cheeks. And then, because that sounds silly, she adds, "Look at you, I mean, like anything in particular."

"Yeah, you do," Stevie says lightly. Or: it should have been lightly, because she's leaning a bit too far forward and her smile is a bit too thin. "You look at me like you can't quite believe I'm here, really."

"Stevie..." She trails off, shakes her head. That's not it at all. Because: maybe, yes, maybe she can admit to herself that she looks at Stevie a little too closely, lets her touches linger a little too long.

But it's not about belief. It hasn't been about belief for years.

"Hey," Stevie shrugs. "I don't mind when it's you."

Sometimes Chrissie thinks that Stevie must know that, must be trying to tell her something else with her quiet reassurances and the way she never moves away.

But Stevie's moved on to another story, and Chrissie doesn't think she can bear thinking about hidden meanings and secrets when this, here in a corner booth at the pub with Stevie and a glass of wine and stories about work, is the closest to comfort she ever gets these days. 

 

***

 

"Chrissie?"

Ira. She's almost sorry for the wave of regret that washes over her. She opens her eyes, doesn't need to look to know Stevie's gone.

"DS King," she starts, reaching for her glasses, but he's leaning against the doorframe, hands in his pockets, clearly not here for work. "Ira," she says instead.

"You were talking to her." It's not a question, not really. The spaces where he doesn't ask her and John questions are the spaces where he says _I don't know, but I care_ more clearly than he could ever say them out loud.

Chrissie smiles a little bit at that, and the expression feels foreign after so long. "Staring at her, she said."

He smiles back, uncertain. "Oh. You two, um. Make a habit of that, then?"

"She was the one who talked." Chrissie props her chin in one hand, rubs the back of her neck with the other. She never used to do that, before, and she brings the hand back to her desk too quickly. "She always wanted to talk. And I just ... I couldn't figure out what she was saying in time."

She's not sure, really, why she's telling him this. He doesn't deserve it: being thrown into a department to replace a dead officer is always hard, and landing with a partner and a boss who still _talk_ to the dead officer is more than anyone should be asked to bear. But she wants to reach out, somehow.

This, too, was something Stevie was better at.

"Sorry," she says, when it feels like the silence has gone on for too long, when she feels very small and very silly for having gone along with this conversation in the first place. "I'll just, um." She stands up, starts to gather up her glasses and her hair ties and her purse that she had packed when she had started getting ready to leave nearly an hour ago. "I'll just go, I should go."

He reaches out to open the door for her, but pauses, fingertips just brushing the handle. "I can -- Do you want me to walk you down to your car? You can tell me about her. Or not."

It's not a rejection, and it's such a surprise that she almost stumbles, heel catching on nothingness. "Ste -- Yeah. I'd like that."

 _Stevie'd like that_ , she'd almost said, and the truth of it settles in her bones. But, Chrissie thinks, she would like that as well, and that part surprises her.

Not everything has to be an ending, she thinks as she watches Ira gather his things, and the thought isn't as warm as Stevie's voice, or Stevie's hands under hers, but it's new.


End file.
